President Donald Trump adopts different strategies in dealing with the leaders of America’s two greatest adversaries. Where Trump embraces risky escalation regarding Xi Jinping’s China, he tends to apply great deference toward America’s less powerful adversary, Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

China and Russia stand apart from all other nations in their shared intent and means of threatening the United States, its allies, and the advance of human freedom that has broadly defined international relations since 1945. However, the two nations cannot leverage their threat equally.

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China poses the biggest threat.

Under Xi, China is moving to displace the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power. China seeks to overturn America’s protection of global trade, democracy, and security under the rule of law (a provision that has made everyone, including Americans, more prosperous and secure). In its place, China seeks an order of feudal mercantilism in which all nations must kneel before Xi’s political altar to secure continued rights of trade, economic growth, and marginal security.

Xi’s pursuit of this agenda explains why China is militarily dominating the trade-rich waters of the South China Sea, securing or stealing its way to dominance over the most cutting-edge intellectual property, and ensuring the pliability of nations from South Africa to Pakistan to Hungary to Serbia and to the Solomon Islands by bribing their leaders and making them hostages to debt. This is why China also seeks to fray the sovereignty of American allies, such as Australia, Japan, and the Philippines, and destroy the democratic authority of Taiwan.

Xi’s ambition carries a form that Trump cannot ignore.

China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, has amassed a vast and growing navy and air force. Some of its warships, such as the Type-055 air defense cruiser, can compete with their very best U.S. equivalent forces. Other new ships are designed to flood troops onto Taiwan’s eastern coast. The PLA’s legion of cruise and ballistic missiles is designed to wreak havoc on Guam and the U.S. Navy. Repeated training flights by China’s J-36 aircraft suggest Beijing has even beaten the U.S. in the race to deploy a truly sixth-generation fighter aircraft.

Still, Trump has few qualms about upsetting Xi.

Since reentering the White House, Trump has catalyzed the U.S. military’s already growing focus on the Pacific. Leaked planning documents leave no doubt about the Trump administration’s focus on China as its absolute concern. Trump’s State Department has also increased its criticism of China’s repression in Hong Kong and against its Uyghur minority population. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also removed a prior State Department reference to not supporting Taiwan’s independence. That change might not have raised many American eyebrows, but it will have provoked deep Chinese Communist Party rage.

At the same time, Trump’s tariffs threaten to pummel a Chinese economy already weakened by a collapsing housing market, high levels of debt, and profound demographic challenges. The specific consequences of these pressures are hard to judge, but they will only fuel Xi’s already paranoid fortress mentality. Xi will, wrongly or rightly, construe Trump’s actions in his first 100 days as part of a deliberate effort to undermine the CCP dramatically.

In turn, Xi is highly unlikely to yield to Trump’s demand for a manifestly U.S.-favorable détente. On the contrary, if significant U.S.-induced economic pressures are sustained, Xi may go for broke. China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong may assess it is better to attack Taiwan sooner rather than later. Here, Xi may think he can take advantage of the tariff-related discord between the U.S. and its allies, hoping that discord will limit international support for a U.S. response to any attack on Taiwan. And while the how and when of a Chinese attack on Taiwan remains open, it is clear that Xi has not been deterred by U.S. efforts to bolster its Pacific military activity. China published a photograph this week showing that PLA soldiers had recently planted a Chinese flag on a disputed sandbank within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone. It was a surefire signal that Xi won’t be backing down to Trump anytime soon.

This is no small concern.

Every credible U.S.-China war game results in thousands to tens of thousands of U.S. casualties and major economic upheaval. Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, recently testified that a Chinese war against Taiwan would result in “a 25% reduction in GDP in Asia, an effect of 10% to 12% GDP reduction in [the U.S.], [and U.S.] unemployment spiking at 7% to 10% [above current rates].” The Defense Department also assesses that as of December 2024, China has 600 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. While this is well short of Russia’s stockpile (about 4,200 warheads) and the U.S. stockpile (about 3,700), and while China’s air and sea-based nuclear forces need greater development, the PLA’s land-based nuclear forces could annihilate many major U.S. cities and critical U.S. military bases.

Put simply, when it comes to Xi, Trump has an abundant appetite for risk. The same cannot be said for Trump’s dealings with Putin.

Supported by an economy smaller than that of Brazil, Russia’s military has suffered immense human and equipment losses since the February 2022 start of its war on Ukraine. And while much media hype has been made of new generation Russian strategic weapons, U.S. nuclear forces retain supremacy over Russian nuclear forces in terms of both offensive strike and defense interdiction missions. Where the U.S. would suffer terrible devastation in the event of a total nuclear war with Russia, it would likely survive as a nation-state. In contrast, Russia would fundamentally cease to exist as a nation-state. And while Putin is reconstituting his military both to conquer Ukraine and to pose a serious long-term threat to NATO, his present weaknesses are undeniable. But, ever the KGB Red Banner Institute graduate, Putin also understands the power of fear.

To that end, Putin has leveraged escalating nuclear threats against the West since 2022. These threats are designed to deter greater Western support for Ukraine and to earn greater American deference to Putin’s broader security claims in Europe. In stark contrast to his hardheaded approach toward Xi, however, Trump has shown servility in the face of Putin’s brinkmanship. At their now-notorious White House meeting on Feb. 28, Trump warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.” Putin has received no such admonition.

We will have to wait and see whether Trump now moves to impose economic sanctions on Russia in relation to Putin’s prevarication against peace. Still, until now, Trump has also shown a far greater willingness to put pressure on Zelensky than on Putin. While Ukraine agreed to Trump’s demand for a temporary ceasefire more than six weeks ago, for example, Russia has met no consequences for its continuing delays in agreeing to that same accord.

Similarly, while Trump temporarily suspended arms supplies and intelligence sharing with Ukraine to extract Zelensky’s acceptance of his demands, Russia has met only fleeting social media threats from Trump. U.S. secondary sanctions on the Russian banking and oil export sectors would create a profound and immediate challenge for Putin. But Trump has not leveraged these tools of power beyond rhetorical form. Putin takes very little notice of rhetoric unless it carries teeth, or he is the one offering it.

IS IT REALLY THE PERFECT TIME TO BOMB IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM?

What explains the divergence in Trump’s boisterous stance toward a powerful Xi and his simultaneous latitude to a weaker Putin? Perhaps Trump believes his oft-stated friendship with Xi will prevent the Chinese leader’s decisive escalation? Perhaps Trump truly fears that Putin is capable of leading Russia into nuclear oblivion to secure control over what would then be a nuclear wasteland in Ukraine?

Regardless, Trump’s respective stances toward Xi and Putin are incongruent with the relative measures of each leader’s power.